For Merlin Won

One time when I was working the Thruway, I told another part-timer (toll collector) that at ten p.m.every night, a woodchuck and the ghost of an old trucker who got killed on the Thruway fifty years ago come out to visit. It was to be his first time there at night alone. I told him that the woodchuck and the old trucker had made friends.
The part-timer asked me if I could see the ghost. I said no. Then he asked how I knew the ghost was there with the woodchuck. "You feel kind of chilly," I said.

A couple of hours later, a car came through with a Utica ticket. Utica is where one of the State Hospitals is for those unfortunates who aren't able to get themselves together enough during a ten day stay at the local nut wards. Some of the patients settle in Utica near the mental hospital after getting out.

A guy was driving the car. His passenger, a woman, leaned over him and peered up at me. "Do ya ever see flying saucers out here?" she asked me. "Naw." She then told me, "The toll collectors in Utica tell me they see them all the time." I had to keep myself from laughing. "Ya can't believe anything a toll collector tells ya," I replied.

A long time ago I was hanging out with the Spiritualists-- it's a church of people who believe in One G-d see, but they also do seances weekly-- and we were all into giving messages and channeling at these seances. I trance out fairly easily. That is probably due to the trauma that I've lived through rather than any great psychic gifts or whatnot. And I didn't need much encouragement. People were giving messages from all sorts of dead spooks and channeling all kinds of teachers with fancy names and origins. And so I tranced out and "channeled" a being from the dogstar Sirius. This happened on several Sundays. I don't remember any of the "messages" now and I highly doubt that the garbage I was "channeling" was from an alien from Sirius flying around in a spaceship. Nothing I ever said in those seances ever changed a life. Nothing anyone said in those seances changed my life either.

I had a gay friend who was a regular dude for several years but then he had a break (what people might have used to call a nervous breakdown). Before winding up on the local nut ward, he had hand-painted his car. Included in the sprawl was the word "Believe" and a badly drawn picture of an alien head. As things turned out, my friend was diagnosed as having an active case of paranoid schizophrenia and it was advised him among other things to quit going to science-fiction/end of the world/aliens are taking over type movies. Those kinds of things would trigger off his symptoms. Genuine paranoid schizophrenia can be rather dangerous and I understand some of the why behind the advice. Eventually the guy had an option to go into one of two businesses-- food catering or house painting. Someone must have seen the job he did on his car because he was encouraged to go into the catering company. He did so and he found he was a real good cook. He is doing well today. Luckily for him the meds work well and he has enough insight to listen to the shrinks about the alien movies and stuff.

I don't believe in aliens or spaceships. All of that stuff has been rather fabulously debunked. I think if there are intelligent life forms living in other galaxies, they are doing their best to stay the hell away from us. At times in the past-- influenced by my experience "channeling an alien"-- I was rather taken with the idea of spirit aliens [read: dead people] cruising around in spirit spaceships blasting out some good tunes and jamming with the atmosphere. Now I figure that is a good fantasy; although if they do exist, that is how I would like to spend my afterlife. Cruising around the intergalactic highways with some spook friends jamming to the music-- that would be a cool thing to do after death! If there is a reincarnation, then stick a fork in me. I am done. Ain't coming back here. Had enough.

spike q.